Download Music culture The Romantic Period (1820

Music culture
The Romantic Period
(1820-1910)
Piano Music
Music for piano flourished throughout the Romantic period. Many forms of piano
pieces evolved, including the miniature. Romantic miniatures such as the nocturne,
impromptu, etude, and ballade become extremly popular, as they were short , easy
to listen to, and they concentrated on one single musical idea.
Frederic Chopin is perhaps the most famous of all Romantic composers for the
piano. An example of his work is the Ballade in G minor.
Frederic Chopin
Chopin's beautiful piano pieces earned him a reputation as the greatest
composer for the piano. His family was poor and lived in Poland. His mother was
Polish and his father was French. He went from Poland to Paris in 1831, and in
1838 he toured England and Scotland though he was very ill.
Chopin was from the Romantic period. He was born in ZelaZowa Wola,
Poland, 1810 and died in 1849 in Paris, France, because of steadily worsening
tuberculosis.
Chopin received musical training from Adalbert
Zywny and then he went to a conservatory where he
studied under Joseph Elsner. Chopin was born to a
poor but aristocratic family. His first piano lesson was
at the age of six. Chopin played in the public at the
age of eight. Field, the style of Hummel and Bach all
influenced him.
Chopin wrote music for the piano, orchestra and
miniatures such as Polonaise in A-Flat major and
Nocturne in F-sharp. Some of his most famous
pieces are Polonaise in A-flat major, Waltz in C-sharp
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minor, Prelude in D-Minor and Nocturne in F-sharp.
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt performed publicly almost to the day he died. He was among the
first to arrange entire programs of solo piano music. He was the originator of a
melodramatic playing style that raised piano virtuosity to a self-sufficient and
exciting form of entertainment.
Both Czerny and his father taught Franz Liszt the piano. He gave his first
recital at the age of nine. As a child he was sent to Vienna where he studied
composition with Antonio Salieri and technique with the celebrated pedagogue
Carl Czerny. From Hector Berlioz and Frederic Chopin he borrowed a number of
important stylistic elements, translating Berlioz' orchestral color into pianistic
terms, and using Chopin's soft lyricism that supported his own natural strength at
the keyboard.
He gave concerts in Paris maintaining his
legendary reputation. He was famous for playing
the piano, being a conductor, an arranger, and a
writer. Franz Liszt and his wife lived in Switzerland
and Italy and had three children.
Liszt wrote piano miniatures, solo piano music,
transcription pieces, poems, symphonic poems
and symphonies. He composed several masses, a
number of psalms, and an oratorio entitled The
Legend of St. Elizabeth.
Some of his most famous pieces are the Faust
and Dante symphonies, Mephisto Waltz,
Totentanz, Leibestraum, and the Hungarian
Rhapsodies.
Classical Quiz
1. What is the term used for music without extramusical associations?
 symphony
 absolute music
 chamber music
2. Which orchestral form features a solo instrument with orchestral accopmaniment?
 sonata
 symphony
 concerto
3. Which Classical composer wrote 104 symphonies?
 Franz Joseph Haydn
 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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 Ludwig van Beethoven
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